BLUE SKIES, GREEN EYES

My band FUN! (this link is as old as time itself)will be playing our absolutely last gig at the 32nd annual Blue Skies Music Festival in Clarendon, Ontario, and judging by this site, it will be a freakish experience. I'm not sure where we, as a progressive electric disco-funk-punk band fit in. We lost all claim to our "folk" roots ever since Tony's fiddle seemed to have vanished into the Kingston night, so I have a feeling we'll be looked atdifferently than other artists. It will not be a typical set for us, as we've been slated to play as the backing band for a yoga massage therapy workshop. We've been given a list of movements to play in certain styles and progressions, but as far as music goes, it will be largely improvised and, considering our penchant for playing art-noise from time to time, quite out there. I imagine it will be akin to Spinal Tap playing the puppet show.



In any case, I have yet to find out who will be playing Blue Skies this summer, but I can guess that most of them I'll have never heard of before, which is all the more fine by me. Camping passes have sold out, according to the OCFF, but we're getting in for free for the whole weekend, so if you want to "join the band" for our last outing, bring something that makes a sound and you're in.

TABARNAK-N-ROLL

Quebec rockers like Les Sultans express their delight that San Fransiscan indie rockers might be into their shit forty years down the road (photo from RetroJeunesse60.

Woah! Killer band!. They're called The Seahorse Liberation Army, a group of self-described San Fransiscan Dadaist Guerilla Semioticians who look towards, amongst other things, French pop and rock for musical inspiration. This work is so imaginative and borderline-psychotic that I'm grinding my teeth. I want to hear more. I want to buy an album or an EP from these guys. You should, too. In fact, go to their website now and just have a good time.

You kids better start getting into this band so that when they come to Toronto they'll have a nice crowd to welcome them to town, and they can whip us into shape with their furious, hilarious, outrageous and contagious rock n'
roll.

THE SEAHORSE LIBERATION ARMY - ABC Intro

One of the band's members has a fantastic mp3 blog called Drugburn, which you should all frequent if you're into the French stuff. There's even some Can-Con (dare I say Quebec-Con?), as they open up the garages of 1960s Montreal for some Quebec-n-roll gems.

We've decided to forgo the Edmonton special this week in favour of a profile on Drugburn, so instead, I'll mention that Normals Welcome Records will be dropping some dancefloor sickness on this side of the country real soon.

*****NEWS UPDATE!!! NEWS UPDATE!!! (6/24/05)
This page, by some bizarre automation coincidence, is now available in poor, literally translated French.

GET BACK

Tired of all this new music bullshit? Like, things only just start to get good and all of a sudden innovators start to make the wrong decisions. It's beginning now with Le Tigre, who are collaborating with Paris Hilton on an upcoming release. I'm not sure why they're doing this, but it's idiotic from any angle. Whether it's appropriation, shock value or just plain old selling out doesn't matter, since it's a severley uninspiring career move. It's cheap and laughable, and nowhere near as comendable as Sleater-Kinney's change in direction, which actually takes a serious risk isolating them from their audience. Whether it's good or not depends on what kind of a fan you are of Sleater-Kinney, but in Le Tigre's case, no amount of Kathleen Hanna's university savvy dialect can save them from absolute ridicule. Let's remember, this is the bitch that kicked the shit out of Courtney Love backstage at Lollapalooza! And now she's shacking up with Paris? Jesus. No one can possibly enjoy such a collaboration without being incredibly boneheaded. Le Tigre have already gained a new but totally boring and late-for-the-boat audience by dropping their music into a car commercial, but why this Hilton shit? They've got every college kid yelling "Who took the bomb!" What are they after? Ten year old girls?

Yes, it's true, Paris Hilton's biggest fans (other than mddle American males) are young girls. I happened to pass upon her promo stunt at Much Music for House of Wax a few weeks back, and out of strange curiosity I figured I'd see what this girl was all about. Maybe she had something intelligent to say, or some quirkiness that could justify her ridiculous behaviour. But no, it was crass and lowly, and had about as much sophistication as a children's birthday party. When they asked her what her favourite movie was (a true gem of a question from the brilliant audience), she proclaimed proudly, "House of Wax is my favourite movie!" And what happens? A few hundred sluttily dressed, dangerously jailbaity young girls cheered her on like she was Lady Madonna at a passion play. Sad, sad, sad.

So it's all the more fitting that this past week that I've been able to take my mind off the more tragic aspects of the decline of modern music by indulging in The Best of Playboy After Dark, a bootleg collection of musical performances from Hugh Hefner's rockin' 60s late night television show. Nothing is more divine than the opening numbers, featuring a medley performance from Smokey Robinson in the middle of a luau. All leid out, his band lay it down slow and soft with hand drums, flutes and creamy pianos, closing the set with quite possibly the best live rendition of "The Tracks of My Tears".

The Grateful Dead feed the audience acid (watch for the young bunny who gets "lost in the music") and alternate between their folk grandeurisms and sudden freak outs. Deep Purple sing the lines of "Hush" as their skinny 60's face peek through bouffant hairdos that would make a mobster's wife jealous. Of course, there are some moments that reek of the cheese, like the early-video effects cut that establishes a lip-syncing Iron Butterfly in a teleportal behind a paitining in Hef's study. But the dancing crowd, whi twirl and twist to the shuffle of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"looks amazing! Their movements are so expansive that "poof!" you're all of all of a sudden inside the screen dancing with them in some silly costume that found its way to your body during the timewarp. I've never seen anything like it on TV.

More standouts include: the epic psychadelic Christian rock of The Cowsill family, who prove the supremacy of gospel music even in its white interpretations; the Dead's uplifting "St. Stephen"; and an energetic, young Linda Ronstadt singing "I'm Walking Down a Line" "back when she still looked attractive" as my roommate Jay likes to say.

Over all, the video compitaltion gives you access to some fantastic television music performances that would otherwise have gone unremembered. For further effect, you get the cutaways to the dancers and house guests, all of them swingers who stole the fire from the hippies and the swank from the 50s to make the perfect party mix of style and outrageousness. The "dancing on the stairs" scene during Grand Funk Railroad's shirtless rock party speaks volumes to this culure of sex and good times.

This is thw way music used to be. Celebrities would invite you onto their shows, but you didn't need to invite them into your band just justify your existence.

And with that comment, I leave you with the (once) beautiful Linda, one more time...


THAT'S SOME HOT SHIT!

SMOKEY ROBINSON AND THE MIRACLES - The Tracks of My Tears

*****

Apologies for the lack of a show this past week, but I was shooting a film in and around Waterdown for the weekend. It was quite hectic but it's all over and I'm ready to get back to the music. Tune in this week (Friday at Noon ET on CIUT 89.5fm in Toronto, for new music from Edmonton.

CLUB OLD VAGINA'S or HOW I LEANRED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE CRAZY PERSON WHO PUT MY FRIEND'S HAT IN HIS CROTCH

Not in recent memory has June been so hot in Toronto. Having already taken three cold showers during the day in my fanless domicile, it was a relief to be showered once again at Club OV's for the Vice party, where No Dynamics' Jeremy Finklestein showered us with what must have been a barrel full of water. Again, No Dynamics delivered much of what I expect from them: barrages of large cymbal crashes, high pitch horror movie organs, modulating noise from Dan Vila's Strat and Vanessa's from-the-gut singing, which was taken to new heights of loudness this evening. They're the one band I can see while I'm sober, yet still convince myself that I'm fuckd out of my face through their entire set.

Bush League's singer terrorized us with antics that would make Nick Flanagan blush, stealing my beer during their first of only two songs, and champaigning its contents over my friend Marina. Her boyfriend Paul instigated a retaliatory measure, pouring his own beer over the singer's head, but only to be one-upped by his swift piece-de-resistance. Almost immediately, the singer grabbed Paul's face, planted a sloppy smooch on his mouth, stole his Blue Jays capt, and promptly stuffed it down his crotch. This singer is one wild bastard, looking like some strung out Prince in his nice attire and dark eye-shadow. He's the perfect cure for crowd apathy, since you can never know if you'll be one of the targets of his showman's assaults.

To my surprise, the legendary Bunchofuckingoofs closed out the show to the few of us still interested in watching the music front and centre. After all these years, Crazy Steve is still Toronto's number one punk rock singer. He's got enough energy to last another twenty-five years.

******

Having Mikabomb do a pre-taped live session for us on Friday was a true delight. I've fallen in love with the three girls in the band, who are all class act ladies with bitchy little hearts of gold. They had just seen Niagara Falls for the first time, and were quite excited to tell me that they had "pissed all over Niagara Falls", as the old song goes. Mike Handa's clever lyrics impressed me, with such gems as "She's a super sexy razorblade happy girl!" and "''m a yellow bitch from Oksaka City / Sittin on my ass on Rockaway Beach." When I asked her what the general response to the new album, Hellcats had been like so far on the tour, she replied by saying in her mind-bogglingly adorable Japanese British accent: "Some of the boys, they say it's too...bitchy? But we don't care. We just wanna play more music."

I was unable to make it out to their Sneaky Dee's show last night, but I can tell you that based on their performance in studio, they were certain to have won some Toronto fans. It was their first show here, but efinitely not their last, as they seemed to have enjoyed themselves thoroughly and mentioned that they were looking forward to coming back again.

The studio performance will air on a Monday in the near future on CIUT's It's (A)live. I'll keep you posted on the date, and tomorrow I'll have Friday's playlist posted for your consumption.

GLORY FADES

Over the past few months on the show, I've alluded to this Siktransit character as our "resident beat machine". Every other show or so, I play a boppin' new tune from this guy and don't even have the common courtesy to link it...UNTIL NOW!

Siktransit, aka. Andrew Hallisey, has posted his newest tracks online, and I take it as I would a moral duty to share them all with you over the blogosphere.

SIKTRANSIT - A Time For Grandchildren
SIKTRANSIT- All Your Bass Are Belong to This Song
SIKTRANSIT - Futuresack!
SIKTRANSIT - Hey, Thatsa My Saaandwhich!
SIKTRANSIT - Hey You Listen Here Buddy!
SIKTRANSIT - Pamplemousse
SIKTRANSIT - Sometimes We Dance

Andrew is lonely, so he's asked me to put up his email address:
siktransit@hotmail.com

******

ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!

Announcement #1

After Friday's show, I've been asked by our music director Ron Burd to host a CIUT live in studio session with London via Japan's punk rock hotties Mikabomb. Please tune in to 89.5fm or over the web at www.ciut.fm at 1pm ET for BIG DOWNTOWN BOOGIE WOOGIE ROCK AND ROLLLLLL!!!!

Announcement #2

For all the jungle headz, as dead as the genre might be, there's still some people who are very interested in its strong points. If you're one of these people, DJ Anubis' BASSPLaTE AIRWAVES is thing, most likely. I swear to god, I can hear demons speaking to me as I listen to it.

SPACE ME OUT

What a nice 24 hours to be in this city! Caught the Spacing zine party last night at the El Mo with Friendly Rich and the Lollipop People. The band were quite exciting, getting drunker and weirder with each number. I particularly liked this number, which they played last night:

FRIENDY RICH AND THE LOLLIPOP PEOPLE - Where the Baker Sleeps (recorded live at some point in Mercer Union)

Spacing was launching their latest issue, entitled The History of Our Future. There's a fantastic article in it by author Darren O'Donnel calling for the city to install large speakers on the CN Tower so that citizens can "represent their dreams and aspirations by becoming DJs of the world's highest freestadning soundsystem." The Eclectic Sound Basement would like to state its official support of said proposal. Nothing blew my liquified coffee rum brain than seeing those massive speakers hanging off the shaft of the worl'd largest free-standing penis. Our national ball's, perhaps?

I almost got some free delicious TTC buttons, but I was nabbed by the mighty Boy Reporter, who politely informed me that there was indeed a sign hanging over the merch table with a price list for the buttons. Oh well, the magazine is 10bux richer, I suppose, and may they reap more earnings with those brillaint buttons. The whole damn city should be buying those by now.



The majority of the night, however, was spent drinking outrageous coffee flavoured rum with the boys from Exposed Brain at an undisclosed location, where I was introduced to a BBC spoof science show in the mold of Daily Planet. But the twist is that it's set in the 80s and it looks at future technologies. One episode looked at the music of the coming 21st century, with guests like Synthesizer Patel and Tchaikovsky's ghost.. It's called Look Around You and i suggest you check out the site for some rather bizarre but pleasurable comedic fare.

A sample of some of the music in their "What Will Music Sound Like in the Year 2000?" contest:

TONY RUDD - Machadynu
TONI BAXTER - Sexual Interface

Next week, tune in to CIUT 89.5fm at noon for The Eclectic Sound Basement, representing the best of the blogosphere over the radio airwaves since...uh...2004 :(

ESB PLAYLISTS 6/3/05 AND 5/27/05

In university, much work was lost due to my time spent on the internet. Now that I'm in college, I wish not to repeat such mistakes, hence the tardiness in delivering yet another playlist. So we'll start with today's, and then last week's...sorry, no downloads this time around. But first, fun for the whole family...


Thats my man John Einarson, my old history teacher, droppin' the science on the kids on A&E's Neil Young Biography. Big Johnny E, as we used to call him, was THERE back in the day when Winnipeg outshone Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal as the rock music capital of Canada in the 60s. He's got some kickass stories, like the time he accidentally opened for Led Zeppelin (more on that next week, perhaps?).

He was a pretty rock n' roll teacher. Every year, he'd put together "The Rock Show" at my school, and everyone who played instruments or sang would sign up and they'd be grouped in different songs with other musicians. Each year had a different theme: Summer of Love: Music of 1967, Oh! What a Feeling!: A Tribute to Canadian Rock, Woodstock: A Celebration, and The Beat Goes On: 30 Years of Roc n' Roll. Man, did I ever get to work on my chops in those shows. Woodstock was the best. Instead of doing it in the shitty debating theatre like we did every other year, we took it to the gym and constructed a huge stage with video screens and everything. Fuck, we even did a rain dance between two Santana songs! What memories!

A selected list of tunes I got to play year to year:

IRON BUTTERFLY - In A Gadda Da Vida
TEN YEARS AFTER - I'm Goin' Home
THE WHO - We're Not Gonna Take It / See Me Feel Me
JIMI HENDRIX - Purple Haze (the smoke machine got so thick on this number one night that the fire alarm went off...but no one noticed until the show was over because we rocked so loud!)
BTO - Roll on Down the Highway
THE CLASH - Should I Stay or Should I Go

Sure, you may think of those tunes as rather trite now, but c'mon, put yourself in the mind of a high school student. Didn't you just wanna rock? All the time? Well I got to do it in school, muthafuckas!!! I don't know if I ever got to thank Johnny enough, so I'll give him this humble tribute.

Read his article on Neil's early days in Winnipeg and Toronto here. Take a look at his impressive bibliography her.

On with the playlist, off with your heads!

VITALIC - La Rock 01
!!! - Get Up
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - Jump Into the Fire (Live)
GANG OF FOUR - At Home He's A Tourist
MAHI MAHI - He No Wah
* Our opening honours the return of DJ Seez, whose new blog allows him to stay in touch with his beloved and far reaching community, which sometimes comes from the least likeliest of places. He has seen his share of good times this past year as Business Manager of CFRC Queen's Radio, from shaking hands with Jean Chretien to shotgunning beers with the FUBAR fellas, he's become a Canadian icon of his own. Long live The Seez!!! Download tunes from his site. There's already a demand for it, as I got a phone call during the show today requesting that I repeat the address.

ROCK I.D. SOUNDSYSTEM - Ain't It Hard
* I introduce you to our guest this week: Rocky Singh, formerly of the legendary Asian Dub Foundation, has returned to Toronto to work with Kidd Rasta and the Peacemakers, and in the process, decided he'd make a couple releases of his own. We had a nice chat for about ten minutes. It's always good to learn from those who have been around the world. He's having a release party next week, check out the details on hissite by clicking on one of the tom toms on the drum kit.

SIKTRANSIT - More PopADop
SOLVENT - Operating Ease
DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 - Blood on Our Hands
JOEL PLASKETT - Work Out Fine
NEW PORNOGRAPHERS - Your Daddy Don't Know
* You can get videos of the last three artists on Cliptip (via Zoilus).

5/27/05

ROCK I.D. SOUNDSYSTEM - Ain't It Hard
ROCK I.D. SOUNDSYSTEM - Come Around (Shiva Remix)
0=0 - Abolished
MOODYMANN - J.A.N.
SIKTRANSIT - Here Comes Bang
THE EVER NEVERS - Transmission
THE EVER NEVERS - Psychadelix
GINFERNO - Kat Chas
VMW - Black Rainbow
THE APES - Mind of Mailla
THE APES - The Nightime Reaper
* Thanks to Headphone Sex and 20JazzFunkGreats for playlist material. Blogsphere represent!

******

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

I'll be heading off to Grosmorne, Newfoundland to make a travelogue documentary with my friend Ben Roberts (seen here dressed as Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) for six weeks in August and September...which means I won't be physically present at CIUT to do the show every week. But worry not! I'll be compiling a six show series based on some of the fringier aspects of the mp3 blogosphere. Look for specials on: odd sound artifacts from the early 20th century, found tapes, mid century classics, dj live sets, and label profiles. I'll keep you posted as the project moves along.

Now, off to school from midnight to 2am, as it was the only time I could book the studio for DAT tape transfers. My Friday night, wasted on school! What a bunch of bullshit!